Industry experts say the true number of annual deaths might be twice the officially reported total. They say the reason for the carnage is simple: too many employers, especially owners of small construction companies, ignore safety rules.

"Generally speaking, that is the problem," said
Jack Mickle
, a professor emeritus of civil engineering at
Iowa State University
who helped write the federal trench safety regulations in the 1970s. One rule is that no worker should enter a trench unless the earth walls are supported by wood beams or metal trench boxes.

"Very seldom does a properly protected trench cave in," Mickle said. "It's one of those things that people feel they can get away with. They think, 'It won't take long. I'll be in and out.' And then they get caught."

In trench work, getting caught means getting crushed. And that appears to be happening more than ever.

Schneider is on a committee formed by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to examine trench deaths. "We've been talking about it a lot at OSHA to figure out why it's happening," he said.

In Fernandes' case, police and fire officials said the 26-year-old man was in a trench that had no safeguards to keep the walls from caving in. He was crushed under tons of dirt on Tuesday.

OSHA's Bridgeport office is investigating the accident. The agency's regulations state that trench safety is the responsibility of the employer. Fernandes worked for G.H. Kelly and Son of New Milford.
Galen Kelly
, the company's owner, would not comment on the accident or any safety measures.

"I don't know if you understand the situation," Kelly said last week. "At G.H. Kelly and Son, we have hearts that are severely broke. Our so-called employees are more family than anything else.

"This was an accident. Accidents happen and they are unfortunate. It was an accident," Kelly said. "There is not a dry eye in this company."

Funeral services for Fernandes were held Friday at
United Methodist Church
in Danbury. Kelly paid for the services and is covering the cost of flying his employee's body back to Brazil.

In January 2003, Ricardo Silva was killed after being struck in the head with a steel plate meant to keep the trench walls from falling. He was helping to build a sewer line in Bethel.

OSHA later fined the employer,
Earthmovers
Inc. of Danbury, $3,267 for not properly securing the steel plates. The fine might have been higher, but officials said Earthmovers had a good record before the accident.

Still, the two trench deaths are no fluke. Trenches in Connecticut generally aren't safe, according to OSHA statistics.

Officials inspected 44 excavation sites in the state from Oct. 1, 2003 to Sept. 30, 2004. Of those, 28 trenches - or 64 percent - were found to be in violation of federal regulations.

Most accidents involve cave-ins like the one that claimed Fernandes' life. And so OSHA inspectors across the country have a mandate - deal swiftly with dangerous trenches.

"All OSHA compliance officers, in the course of their daily duties and their daily travel, should they see an open trench that does not appear to be properly protected, they certainly do have to stop the car and immediately assess the situation," said
John Chavez
, a spokesman for OSHA's New England office in Boston.

"If there are workers in there in imminent danger, they can order workers out of the trench," Chavez said.

But a Boston-based OSHA inspector with 30 years of experience said the crackdown has been less than successful. "It's still pretty common, despite OSHA's efforts, for employers to take chances," said the inspector, who asked that his name not be published.

Industry insiders said workers die because some construction bosses don't want to take the time and swallow the costs associated with installing trench boxes and other safety devices.

Experts said it can take several man hours to prepare a trench. A backhoe or an excavator is needed to drop in a Dumpster-sized trench box.

"With construction, everything is about the cheapest bidder, so they gamble with their employees' lives," said
Vincent A. Ettari
, a Yorktown, N.Y., engineer who has testified for insurance companies in lawsuits triggered by trench accidents.

Trenches are a dime a dozen on construction sites. They hold water lines, sewer pipes and drainage systems. They vary in depth based on topography, soil type and the type of job. Fernandes was in a trench that was 12 feet deep.

Digging the deep holes loosens surrounding soil. Throw in factors like rain and vibrations from heavy machinery, and unprotected trenches can become not-so-shallow graves.

Iowa State's Mickle, known in the industry as Dr. Dirt, travels the country teaching OSHA inspectors about trench safety. He said the chances of emerging alive from a collapsed trench are slim. A 10-foot-high trench wall can weigh 1,000 pounds.

"For the most part, victims experience crushing," Mickle said. "Occasionally, you hear about a person who put his hard hat over his head to breathe. That is nonsense. When you drop that much weight on a person's body, the chances of escaping (being) crushed are pretty small. They cannot breathe."

Contractors have two basic options for trenches over 5 feet deep. They can install a large steel trench box. Once inside the boxes, workers are protected if the trench collapses.

The other option is to place sheets of wood or metal, braced by struts, against the trench walls to keep the walls in place.

A contractor is supposed to have an employee on site that OSHA calls the "competent person" - a worker trained to identify potential job hazards.

"Imagine yourself going into the ground four to 10 feet to put in pipes or wires," Kuhn said. "You have to have protection so that the sand and the soil and everything else isn't going to cave in on the person."

Danbury city engineer William Buckley Jr. said city contracts require contractors to comply with OSHA requirements, including trench rules. For example, a sewage line project along Backus Avenue includes a trench that, at one point, was 22 feet deep. An engineer hired by the city to oversee the project specified that any contractor in the trench had to use a trench box.

Still, contractors cut corners.

An owner of a suburban Danbury construction company said every contractor at one time or another has gone into an unprotected trench or sent a worker into one.

"I've personally gone into deep trenches without shoring. You couldn't find anyone in the business who would honestly tell you they never did," said the contractor, who asked that his name not be published.

The chances of an OSHA inspector coming to the job site are slim, he said. Following the rules to the letter slows progress on the job, which costs contractors money.

There is a competitive issue as well, the contractor said. A company that breaks the rules works faster and cheaper than a company that follows them. That allows some companies to underbid competitors and get more work.

A trench box costs from $3,000 to $20,000 depending on its size, said
Gary Bushong
, vice president of sales for Efficiency Production Inc., a Michigan-based manufacturer. The boxes can be rented for about $300 a day.

"A little bit of money goes a long way when you are talking about saving someone's life," Bushong said.

Employers who fail to protect trench workers face fines ranging from $7,000 to $78,000. The higher fines are levied against employers that blatantly disregard safety regulations.

It's mostly small companies that break the rules, said Scott Schneider, who is on the OSHA committee studying trench safety.

Of the trench collapses that killed people last year, 81 percent involved companies with fewer than 50 workers and 42 percent involved companies with less than 10 workers.

"What we've found is that a lot of these are on very small (construction ) sites," Schneider said. "They figure they'll only be in and out in a minute and the chances of an OSHA inspector coming are slim."

Adding to the problem: 60 percent of the workers who were killed had never received trench safety training. They didn't know the dangers heading in.

In September, Schneider's safety committee made a number of recommendations to OSHA that could save lives.

The committee called for more training for OSHA inspectors; a greater effort to reach small companies, a marketing campaign to make contractors pay attention; and the creation of trench safety seminars for immigrant workers.

Another idea is to rely more on local officials to be OSHA's eyes and ears in the field.

Phoenix, for example, has a program in which firefighters inspect construction sites and work with bosses to make sure trenches are safe.

Schneider's committee also suggested that companies found with unsafe trenches be put on a sort of probation. The bosses would be required to tell OSHA about every job the company takes for at least a year.

"We need a better way for OSHA to find these little jobs," Schneider said.